Identity fusion and the psychology of political extremism

textPast research in the psychology of extremism has argued that extremism is a psychological state characterized by a perception that the group is absolutely correct, endowed with moral authority, and threatened or opposed by some active group or entity working against the ingroup. There has been little research which has focused on what psychological processes may underlie this state. It is proposed in this dissertation that extremism is an outgrowth of identity fusion, a state in which the personal and social levels of the self-concept become closely aligned so that they may not be activated independently of each other. Identity fusion is theorized to follow from self-verification motives interacting with salient social identities, so that when people need verification for the way they see themselves and a group which provides such verification is activated, fusion may result. Three studies were conducted to examine different aspects of the identity fusion-extremism link. In Study 1, experimenters manipulated the need for selfverification motives and the social context to determine if self-verification predicted the development of fusion with a verifying, salient group. This study found little evidence of this link. Study 2 used counterattitudinal messages to assess the link between fusion and absolutist patterns of thinking. Fused participants were found to show significantly more emotional response to and rejection of counterattidudinal messages, in line predictions. Finally, Study 3 examined the behavioral and linguistic correlates of fusion and found some evidence that fusion predicted self-reported behaviors in line with political extremism and patterns of language use which emphasized the personal self.Psycholog

Patterns of belief and patterned thought: relationships between religious fundamentalism and cognitive restructuring

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 14-15).Previous research on religious fundamentalism has focused on correlating fundamentalism with a number of personality variables. Religious fundamentalism has been associated with low religious quest, high right-wing authoritarianism, prejudice, and authoritarian styles of child raising. Research on cognitive variables associated with religious fundamentalism has shown that it is associated with reduced cognitive complexity and lower complexity of thinking in problem solving. The overall view which has developed, is one of religious fundamentalism as a very rigid structure of belief which emphasizes traditional interpretations and ways of viewing the world. It was the hypothesis of this study that this structure of belief would interfere in the ability to solve cognitive restructuring or insight problems, as these problems require flexibility in mental representation in order to be solved. Forty-four subjects were recruited from the Psychology 107 Subject Pool and were given the Altemeyer-Hunsberger religious fundamentalism scale and 10 cognitive restructuring problems. Analysis of the results using a Pearson's R show no significant results (r=.38). However, when graphed the data show interesting patterns of uniformly high scores in cognitive restructuring in those who scored low in religious fundamentalism, and very high variation in restructuring scores in those who scored high in religious fundamentalism. Possible reasons for this are addressed, and directions for future research are suggested